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Month: February 2016

As a group we discussed where our focus for this project we decided to look at technology

We were playing with the ideas of a “Build A Bear workshop” style shop where customers can go and upgrade themselves or even build another person. We were discussing the ideas of having smartphones built and contactless card chip implanted into an arm or a camera lense replacing an eye.

advisement for cosmetic surgery

The feel to a lot of the posters are clean clinical and professional. This is to install a sense that the client will be in good hands that they are those things.

Penis enlargement is an exception, as it uses humour to sell their clinic. This shows a knowledge of their target audience.

Apple design

I was looking at the similarities between the design between the advertising with apple and the cosmetic surgery. The designs are both very clean and clinical. Also people buy into the lifestyle of cosmetic surgery and the Apple lifestyle which includes practically all the products Apple sell.

Social Media

As our target audience are always on their phones using social media apps, so we thought one of the most effective way to spread awareness of the cause is through social media, as people are always sharing what they think is important or they enjoy. This was one of my main jobs in the project I created accounts on two of the most popular social media sites/apps -Instagram and Facebook. I decide that twitter is not as successful and it’s quite easy to over look posts as they don’t take up the whole phone screen like Facebook and Instagram do.

I created a simple cover image for the page that included the campaign title and logo. This is so from the minute the viewer is seeing the page they are being asked the question that the campaign. It links in with the rest of our products so it is hopefully is recognisable as this campaign.

The Facebook account includes information about our campaign and animal testing, and also images of out t-shirts, posters, information booklet and links to our vine.
The Instagram account includes photos linking to our campaign, and agian our posters, facts, information. I also made a small video to put onto the instagram of the cuddly rabbit being “tested” on.

We created a Vine (6 second video) was made with the intention of shocking our target audience through a simple metaphor of the rabbit being used as a piece of equipment. As young adults we are surrounded by social media, and are constantly seeing things that are shocking until the point that it isn’t any more. So we needed a short and snappy video to grab attention and Vines quite often go viral reaching thousands if not millions of people. Vine’s being so short doesn’t mean people have to pay much attention to it making it more accessible to people then having to watch a two minute video which a lot of people wouldn’t do.
We planned on having an opening screen with the title of our campaign on it ‘Is Vanity Worth It?’ and then at the end when the plastic bag gets pushed away it reveals our logo for the campaign or even doing it as an animation.

We also created a leaflet that displayed a possible QR code, that can be handed out or placed in public places. The code is scanned using a smart phone, and it takes you directly to our campaign social media or the app.

App

We designed a game, that was contained with in a app, as a different format of raising awareness for animal testing. The idea of the game is very simple, the player is the rabbit and using the controls at the bottom edges of the screen, fight away needles that are flying towards you and escaped. The player gets three lives (shown at the top left corner of the screen), and each time a needle hits the character a life is lost. There is also social media links and our logo within the game, connecting to the app to our campaign and then snappy messages about animal testing. With connecting our campaign in mind, we kept our design simple and our colour scheme consistent. We felt this was a fun way to spread our message quickly and on a large scale, as the game is suitable for practically all ages, and would be quite addictive.

Book

For the book I did a lot more research in to the issue and spend a lot of time creating lists of cruelty and cruelty free make up brands. This was quite difficult as a lot of make up brands are unclear on whether they test on animals or not. Some brands says that they don’t test on animals but then sell in china (where it is a legal requirement to test cosmetics) . I looked on PETA’s website to find a lot of information out and also looked at a number of blogs that looked at the areas. www.crueltyfreekitty.com being the most useful blog.

We collected all the research I had found book in the form of a manifesto, this lays out the facts on one page. The pages that follows include information about three of the main animals that are tested on: monkeys, rodents (rats, mice, ect…) and rabbits. Also included is also the list of cosmetic companies who test their products on animals, and a list of companies that don’t that I found, this will make people aware of what brands they are buying and hopefully encourage people not to buy these products.

We also designed an interactive page with a photo of a photo of a rabbit wearing make-up. The make-up is printed on acetate and can be removed from the bunnies face and beneath the acetate is the same photo of the bunny, but with the effects of the testing rather than the make-up, which will will hopefully shock people who are viewing it. The top being what people thinking testing animals is like and the second being what it is actually like.

What I am taking form this is that a lot of objects in life have some sort of ambiguous quality to it. This could be the cheap wooden veneer, on the wardrobe in my halls room, grain creates a face to some people. Or this could be just my own imagination running away with it’s self as I have seen it everyday and want it to be more than it actually is.One design I can think of that is full of ambiguity is the cover of The Beatles self titled ninth studio album, which is also known as the White Album due to the original 1968 cover being totally white apart from a issue number stamped on. This is ambiguous due to the fact you would have to know what album it was when flicking though vinyl records in a record shop when it was first realised (of course know it is iconic). But it doesn’t include the album title and the band’s name is so faint on it you would have to be looking for it to be able to find it which in it’s self makes it ambiguous.

Another design that comes to mind is one of the film posters for Harry Potter and “The Deathly Hallows Part 2” where the poster doesn’t even include the film’s or the franchise’s title it just assumes that the viewer recognises the characters on the poster. This is most likely possible due to the film being so highly anticipated due to the series success. Also the film franchise had been going for over a decade by the film’s realise and was so ingrained into people’s lives they could afford to not include the title. Another ambiguous film poster is one for “Batman: The Dark Night Rises” this poster creates the shape of the Batman emblem using the tops of buildings to suggest the shape rather the directly having the shape drawn on or filled in on the poster. It’s an image that people recognise easily and would assume that what it is rather than lead them to the conclusion of the bat image.

Book/manifesto that laid out all the information clearly that people who wanted to know more could easily.

App- This was going to be an interactive tap game

T-shirt

Short video

Social media

Posters

Interactive QR- codes that connected to the social media

As a group we decided to design a quick sketch of a logo. I used an image of a paw and a human hand coming together, so it was like the human was comforting or helping the human. I’m not happy with this as a logo. I personally think it’s too much for a logo as the illustrations where very sketchy. It also reminds me of special collectors addition stamps because of the shape of it. I played about with using the acronym for “Stop Animal Abuse” (so S.A.A) but after some research I found that the same abbreviation is used for “South African Airways” and also “Sex Addicts Anonymous”. We then decided to take this simplicity of slogan into what area of animal abuse we were trying to tackle, as it not trying to be to clever. So it changed to “Stop Animal Testing”.

Then as a group we put together some ideas from group members. We decided on the polygon as it is the same shape as the stop road signs which is subtle for someone to connect to subconsciously to stop in their minds and then an illustration of an animal to connect them together.

We then decided that we needed to expand this more, as the single polygon seams like it was pulled out of nowhere. We put a few together to mimic the shape of a paw loosely.

A illustration of the bear was used, as we wanted to use a teddy bear in other formats of the campaign as we wanted to play on the target audience’s childhood memory as a cuddly toy is often thought as a symbol of a child’d innocence and we wanted to show that the animals that are being tested on where in the same position.

In a tutorial David questioned why we were using a bear as it gave off an impression that a bear is an animal that is being tested on. He suggested that we use an animal that is used within animal testing or only using type on the logo. We tried to design a logo that included the tag line that I had come up with when coming up with ideas for posters, “Is Vanity Worth it?”. A team member and I tried to make the just type work in the logo and and we just couldn’t get it to fit in the logo or not look cheap.

We decided to use an image of a rabbit as the campaign’s mascot because rabbits are the most commonly tested on animal for cosmetics (according to PETA). Using the character gave our logo some personality, a face to the campaign.

We kept our logo design we wanted it keep it quite basic, in terms of colours and shapes, so we stuck to these three colours – black, white and pink. If we kept it to just to pink and white it would have look to other charities.

Posters

I came up with a few ideas for poster designs and messed about with different slogans. Then when I came up with “Is Vanity Worth It?” it suck and became the name of our campaign. The whole point of the campaign was to get people talking and thinking about the how the products they used are made, and a question is a perfect way of doing this.

This was a quick mock up for the poster idea I pitched to the group. We decided that my idea was too shocking and shock tactics don’t really work any more as they have just been over done that we have been desensitised to the shock tactics.

We designed another two posters one using a photo of a cuddly toy rabbit with make up edited on. This would would have looked better if we used actual make up on the toy. We decided not use this as it doesn’t fit in with the graphic language of the rest of our work.

The other poster was a really basic with the character with a speech bubble and the slogan “Is Vanity Worth It?” we decided that this poster did not have enough context in it and there was too much empty space in the poster.

Final Poster Design

The idea for this style was mainly to spread awareness without trying to shock people using horrible imagery, as many of these photos currently exist, resulting in it loosing its shock factor. We also felt the poster would be a good way to link our campaign with the app, logo and our character. We also developed a set of posters that provide more information.

Placards-Based on the work of Stanley Green.

Stanley Green created placards that encouraged viewers to stop eating protein. They where massive home made signs that he’d walk around crowed cities.

Our task was to create a single placard, that showed two sides of the argument. In groups we discussed what themes to look at, these themes included:-

Legalisation Cannabis

Animal Cruelty

Zero Hour Contracts

Mental Health

Sexual Abuse

We decided to keep the design quite simple to keep the message clear.

I like the format of the placards a they are very pubic and in your face. The process is also quite quick and inexpensive to make a number of them. The fact the placard are hand made gives it a rustic and authentic feel.

I personally wasn’t inspired by the subject we choose for the placard and I don’t think the messages are clear of what it’s trying to get across. I think most of the group felt the same on the subject as there was a lot of confusion with some group members of what we where doing.

Group Project

As a group we decided to change the issue we where looking at to something we were actually interested in. We discussed the issues again and decided to focus on animal cruelty. We then all decided to research into different areas of animal cruelty. I focused on animal testing for cosmetics.

Research

I found this informative animation from 2013 as part of a campaign run by Lush Cosmetics get get people to sign a petition to the EU make selling cosmetics that have been tested on illegal in the EU. I think the black and white gives a simplicity to the animation that makes it very effective as it doesn’t over complicate a hard subject. It also isn’t trying to shock you which I don’t think is effective in making an impression on people, it just states hard facts.

I also looked the campaigns website. I like the straight to the point and easily navigated site. There is nothing that could be shocking or offensive about it.

We discussed and decided that we needed to focus more on one aspect of animal abuse rather then a few. We decided on focusing on animal testing for the cosmetic industry as there is a lot of things people don’t know or misunderstanding about what goes on behind the scenes.

In my practice drawing is my first point of call when trying to think up ideas. It helps realise what is in my head visually. This can also explain to others my ideas that I can picture in my head but can’t explain clearly verbally it is always difficult to or even impossible. This also gives the opportunity for feedback straight away from who ever you are showing it too.

Drawing/sketches are also very important when deciding on layouts (this could be for documents, posters or publications like booklets). They can help keep the design consistent with other pages when bringing them into in design. It also quickens the process of creating the layout as you have the considered layouts in front of you on paper rather than having to think as you go along and maybe forgetting what ideas you where thinking of before.

When creating animations drawing is vital in creating storyboards. They often start as rough sketches on scrap paper or post it notes, then the sketches develop into a clearer narrative. These act as a basis to start animating and creating and knowing exactly what comes next in the narrative and keeping on on track with the narrative. Also stop frame animation can be done using hand drawn images which have a certain quality to themselves.

Hand drawings can be used in designs and it gives a more of an organic feel to them even if converted to a vector it still has a form that can’t be mimicked using the tools on an application such as Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop. Where as a digitally drawn image has a cleaner more controlled quality to it than a hand drawn image.